Development Cooperation Handbook/Communication and Knowledge Management/Communication through Media Social Network

In the fast moving world of today, Communication is moving from Newspaper or TV to Social Media Networks (also known as Facebook, Twitter, Mediapress, aggregator of news, blogs, etc). As consequence of this, I believe that to better achieve the objective of spreading awareness in the public about Cooperation for Development, the Eugad project must incorporate in its Media Operators stakeholders (one of the 3 target groups of Eugad) the Operators of Social Media Networks.

These Social Media Tools are creating a new language of communication which is very different from the long written articles of the common media. It is a short and to the point approach which focuses on informing the reader but not taking much time out of the fast moving life we now tend to live. Moreover, all this information is always available on line, which enables any person from any corner of the world to read or view it wherever s/he likes and with no time scheduling required, as it used to happen for TV programs.

For this reason I think it is not only very important but also necessary for Eugad to insert in the Manual a specific chapter dedicated to the Communication through Social Media Network. In this chapter we can deepen the understnading of this new method of communication, try understanding what are the most used Social Networks, what are the reason for some netwroks to be chosen over others, what is their way of communicating, what is their impact in the present world, what impact is foreseen for the future, and much more.

It is important to note that Social Networks are a perfect example of a democratic approach which is applied through the esponential power of the web. It's a real communication from the bottom to the top, and we can see its effects! Have you looked at how much influence an action promoted through Social Networks can exercise on public sensitization? And mind that on newspapers and TV you only very seldom can find articles clearly expressing the power of Social Media Networks (maybe, from time to time, you can find articles on how facebook helped in knowing about "a theft", "racial discrimination" and something else, but more commonly Social Networks, when appearing on Standard Media, are shown as entertainment Media, and nothing more).

I think it will be also very useful to link some blogs or Social Networks with the Eugad website, so that there might be a sharing of resources and more people get to know about various things, news, articles or events related to International Cooperation.

It is true that Eugad is already linked to Facebook and Twitter, but only this Social Network platform doesn't work enough in our case: what's the reason for that? What more should we do?